Software Engineer

Switchboard’s mission is to help Democrats and other progressives win more elections up and down the ballot with better tools and technology, focused especially on their fundraising and digital efforts. We’ll achieve this mission by building effective tools that integrate well with each other and with the best existing tools in the ecosystem, allowing campaigns to save money and execute better, while bringing the whole ecosystem forward and ensuring that candidates at all levels can afford to run an effective campaign. Continuing the work begun by LeftApps and used by over 175 campaigns in 2020, we’re a startup that puts supporting staffers and winning elections first and always will.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll play a foundational role in architecting and building the initial infrastructure and applications for Switchboard. Since this is a new effort, there is a lot of core infrastructure to build, with opportunities to leverage modern technology platforms and frameworks. We’re looking for engineers who have experience and are excited about working at all levels of the stack, from backend data systems to frontend web applications. Projects will range from setting up new cloud-hosted services, to deploying existing open source projects, to building new tools from scratch. Ideal candidates should be comfortable jumping into new areas, scoping projects, and executing on them. As a member of our small team, you’ll take on significant ownership over large parts of our codebase that are critical to the success of the product.

Responsibilities

• Design and build backend data infrastructure to support evolving data models and integrations with third-party products.
• Develop web applications to support the needs of campaign staffers, sometimes deploying existing open source projects and other times developing new tools from scratch.
• Collaborate with team members and campaign staffers outside the org to define, implement, and test new features and tools.
• Develop and manage key components of our technical setup, including code deployment, testing infrastructure, the security of our data and systems, and performance management.
• Help establish and contribute to a positive engineering culture, with best practices around testing, code quality, security, and automation to help reduce errors and maintenance costs.

Ideal Candidates Will:

• Have 3+ years experience building and deploying large-scale web applications, with an eye towards adaptability, scalability, and reliability.
• Have knowledge of Python, JavaScript, or the ability to learn them quickly.
• Have experience setting up and managing cloud-hosted databases, distributed systems, and data pipelines, in particular with data warehouses such as BigQuery, Redshift, and Snowflake.
• Have experience with Google Cloud Platform, AWS, or other cloud service providers.
• Communicate effectively within teams and with outside partners.
• Be comfortable taking on projects in new areas for them, learning quickly to develop the expertise and execute on those projects.

Diversity

We believe the best products are built by diverse teams where everyone’s perspectives are heard and respected. We strongly encourage Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ candidates, women, and members of other underrepresented groups to apply. Even if you’re not sure if you’re the right fit for the role, we strongly encourage you to apply!

Applying

Interested candidates should email jobs@leftapps.us with a resume and/or links to online profiles (GitHub, LinkedIn, etc). No cover letter is required--thanks for your interest!

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